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11/07/2011 @ 12:37PM7,513 views

Pediatrician Group Slams Delta Airlines For Running Video Made By Vaccine Skeptics

Delta Airlines is “putting the lives of children at risk” by showing a video that downplays the importance of flu shots, according to a letter sent last week by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP says that the advertisement “urges viewers to become informed about influenza and how to stay well during the flu season without resorting to the influenza vaccine.”

The video, produced by the National Vaccine Information Center`(NVIC), is being shown as part of in-flight programming on some Delta Flights, and has resulted in angry blog posts and an online petition with 2,000 signatures that urges consumers to “tell Delta Airlines to stop putting their passengers’ health at risk.” The video is embedded in this story. Delta Airlines did not respond to two phone calls and an email requesting comment on Friday.

The NVIC and the AAP have a long history of conflict. In April, the AAP wrote another letter asking CBS to remove an NVIC advertisement from the JumboTron in Times Square in Manhattan. In the letter to Delta, the AAP writes that the NVIC “opposes the nation’s recommended childhood immunization schedule and promotes the unscientific practice of delaying or skipping vaccines altogether” and that this leaves children unprotected from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Barbara Loe Fisher, the founder of the NVIC, says that the video’s message is that “people should take advantage of all options” when trying to prevent influenza, and that the most important steps are simple ones like hand-washing (sing happy birthday twice before you stop scrubbing) and covering one’s mouth. “We offer a view that we have to do everything possible to make vaccine policies in this country as safe as they can be, make vaccines as safe as they can be,” she says. “It is a responsible and legitimate voice. We do not tell people what to do we’re not doctors we’re consumer advocates and we tell people to be informed.”

The AAP counters that “flu vaccine continues to be the best way to protect against the disease.” Fisher and the AAP have a long and charged history. In his book on vaccine scares, The Panic Virus, author Seth Mnookin refers to her as “the grande dame of the American anti-vaccine movement.”

Flu vaccines, which are made by companies including Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, and GlaxoSmithKline, are less effective at preventing influenza than childhood vaccines are at preventing disease like measles or polio. That’s both because the vaccine is itself imperfect and because every year scientists have to guess what strains will be prevalent. But the shots do reduce the chance of getting influenza significantly, and history shows they can stop pandemics in their tracks.

Moreover, flu shots are highly effective at reducing the risk of people dying from the flu, according to Kenneth Bromberg, chairman of the department of pediatrics at The Brooklyn Hospital Center. He says he believes the NVIC video implies that vaccines are not that important by emphasizing other measures.

According to the AAP, 115 American children died of influenza-related disease in the 12 months ending in August. The AAP’s letter is below.

November 4, 2011

Richard Anderson

Chief Executive Officer

Delta Air Lines

Dear Mr. Anderson,

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) objects to the paid advertisement/public service message from the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) being shown throughout the month of November on Delta’s in-flight programming. The ad urges viewers to become informed about influenza and how to stay well during the flu season without resorting to the influenza vaccine.

While hand washing and covering sneezes are parts of a larger strategy to prevent the spread of influenza, influenza vaccine continues to be the best way to protect against the disease. It is especially important in enclosed settings where disease droplets can easily spread to passengers sitting in close quarters, especially infants and children and those with special health care needs.

The AAP and many other child health organizations have worked hard to protect children and their families from unfounded and unscientific misinformation regarding vaccine safety. The influenza vaccine is safe and effective.

By providing advertising space to an organization like the NVIC, which opposes the nation’s recommended childhood immunization schedule and promotes the unscientific practice of delaying or skipping vaccines altogether, you are putting the lives of children at risk, leaving them unprotected from vaccine-preventable diseases. Diseases like influenza can have serious consequences. From September 2010 to August 2011, 115 children died from influenza disease, most of whom were unvaccinated.

The AAP’s 60,000 member pediatricians urge you to remove these harmful messages, which fail to inform the public about the safety and efficacy of influenza vaccine. Please do your part to help reassure parents that vaccinating their children is the best way to protect them from influenza disease, particularly during this busy travel season.

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Where’s the criticism for US News and for MSNBC from the AAP? These are two recent articles that clearly raised concern over the effectiveness of the flu vaccine: Oct 6, 2011, US News: Kids’ Flu Shot Largely Ineffective Over Past Few Years

The video is about 3 minutes long and it’s full of common sense suggestions for staying healthy and avoiding the flu this year. Those suggestions include washing hands, covering your sneeze and cough, drinking water, getting enough exercise and rest, lowering stress and eating a nutritious diet.

Barbara Loe Fisher points out that when people have flu-like symptoms, “about eighty percent of the time you don’t have type A or type B influenza.”

The video promotes proven, natural methods for staying well and “keeping your immune system strong.” It also mentions that there is a flu vaccine available. We’re told that if we choose to get a a flu shot, we should “research the different types of flu vaccines your doctor may recommend.”

“Don’t hesitate to ask questions” when you go to your doctor. There is a manufacturer’s information sheet for each vaccine which lists the ingredients and tells “who should and who should not get the vaccine.”

During the educational video, no one says “Don’t get a flu shot.” No one says that flu vaccine is linked to autism or anything else. It’s a simple common sense message about staying healthy. There is no way anyone can label this “anti-vaccine”–but some people are trying to do just that.

Since when is the principle of informed consent to vaccination a threat to public health?

Anne, Thank you so much for summarizing this for everyone. I am amazed that anyone would have a problem with a pro-health ad which only states to become informed with your decisions. Thank you, thank you, you put this much nicer than I could have.

Anyone that spends 30secs on their site will see that their business model still consists of deceiving parents.

E.g.

While it is shameful that the anti-vaccs still go around claiming that one can’t sue drug companies for vaccine injuries, the simple fact is that anyone that cares enough to look can find this isn’t true, can find the cases where parents have sued, and then understand why the anti-vaccs just won’t be honest about this.

Remind us: what happened when Fisher sued because she didn’t like scientists calling her a liar?

Oh right: she lost.

This isn’t at all about informed consent. It is about transferring money from parents to NVIC.

Yeah I think you hit the nail on the head. Suggesting that rest, exercise, and hand-washing are effective at preventing the flu isn’t controversial. It’s the fact that this is an advertisement pointing to a website that is going to fill your head with a steady stream of anti-vaccine literature after you’ve been disarmed by this relatively neutral, balanced video.

At the local university I see signs up in all of the restrooms advocating for hand washing as a way of preventing the flu. They aren’t controversial because they don’t point me to a website full of conjecture, pseudo-science, and fear-mongering.

“ 20 TIMES the Risk of Autism When You Make This Choice…U.S. children are expected to get 48 doses of 14 vaccines…”

with a link to an article which includes a comment by Barbara Loe Fisher:

“The fact that manmade vaccines cannot replicate the body’s natural experience with the disease is one of the key points of contention between those who insist that mankind cannot live without mass use of multiple vaccines and those who believe that mankind’s biological integrity will be severely compromised by their continued use”

Glad you are drawing attention to this new, underhanded effort by the anti-vaccine group NVIC and Barbara Loe Fisher to scare people away from vaccines. I also note that Anne Dachel from Age of Autism commented on your article – and I’d like to point out that Age of Autism is another extreme anti-vaccination group, although Dachel neglects to identify herself as such.

And on the facts, they are simply wrong. The flu vaccine is highly effective, though its effectiveness varies from year to year because the flu itself mutates rapidly. There is virtually no downside to the vaccine because it uses a killed virus, despite the erroneous scare tactics of NVIC.

Shame on Delta Airlines for spreading misinformation and anti-vax propaganda.

Tens of thousands of families with children on the autism spectrum feel incredibly fortunate to have The Age of Autism online newspaper to help them through all the difficult times. AOA posts an enormous amount of useful information for so many families. Many of these families experienced regressive autism in their children. They were developing normally until receiving vaccinations, at which time they regressed into a formal diagnosis of autism. Even the flu vaccine is not safe for all children, all people. A certain number will be vaccine injured from it or the ingredients in the shot. That’s why it’s so important for people to educate themselves and not just take a doctor’s word for flu vaccine safety. This public service announcement scares a lot of doctors who cannot see outside the box of “all vaccines are safe for all of us.” Maurine Meleck, grandmother to 2 vaccine injured boys(one recovered).